"Meaning _you_," Mr. Langton replies, beginning to puff away furiously at his Havana, as if he were a smoke-stack. "You see I am mistaken in you, Vane. After all you said I didn't believe it was in you to treat your bride in such a cavalier style. If I had thought you would really run away from Reine the next day, and set all the country talking and sneering, you might have gone to the devil before I'd have given you my pretty little niece!" "The regret is mutual, sir," Vane replies, with some heat; and then, glancing up, warned by some strange instinct, he sees his unloved wife standing just within the door. She has entered just in time to catch Mr. Langton's closing speech and the angry answer. Vane sprang to his feet, very red and confused. "I--I beg your pardon," he says, in the utmost confusion. She bows, speechlessly. Her face has gone quite white; her eyes shun his in a kind of fearful shame. She says at last, in a strange voice, but with desperate calmness: "I feared Uncle Langton would be rude to you. You must pardon him, and pardon me." "For what?" he gains courage to ask, a little blankly. "For our share in making you unhappy," she answers, very low. Something in the proud humility of her attitude strikes a remorseful pang through his heart. She stands alone in the center of the room, slender and graceful as a young palm tree, her head drooped slightly forward, the dew of unfallen tears shining like pearls in her long, dark lashes. She is like, yet unlike, the giddy Reine of a month ago. "There is nothing to pardon," he says, in a flurried tone, "Mr. Langton was right. I have acted very badly--like a brute, in fact. You must wish you had never seen me." "Yes," she says, low, but steadily. "It would have been so much better for you." "I did not mean that," says he, disconcerted. "You are good enough to say so," she replies, with delicate disbelief, and then she goes up to her uncle. "The physician you sent for is here," she says. "Shall I send him in?" "Are you so bad as that?" Vane asks, with a slight start. "Yes; I can scarce hold myself together," Mr. Langton replies, and his trembling old hands attest the truth of his words. "I must have something for my nerves or I shall not be able to stir from this to-morrow." Vane rises, glad to get away under any terms. "_Au revoir_," he says. "I will call again to-morrow." He goes back to the Haven of Rest with the poets, æsthetes and such people, lounging on the balconies. That name is a misnomer. It appears to him a haven of unrest. He wanders away to the shell-strewn beach, and smokes like a chimney while he reviews the situation. * * * * * Meanwhile, the physician attending Mr. Langton has thrown a bomb-shell into that camp.